


Waiting (Too Long)

by the_dragongirl



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-08 13:10:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8846347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dragongirl/pseuds/the_dragongirl
Summary: Rex waits by the bedside of one of his lovers, waiting (hoping) for him to wake up. Damn the Sith, anyway.Or - Rex finds proof of the control chips and Palpatine's treason before Order 66 can be fully carried out, and brings it to Anakin in time. Barely. Unfortunately, he does NOT get there in time to prevent the Order from being sent out to Utapau.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morecivilizedage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morecivilizedage/gifts).



> Content warning: this fic contains references to concerns over possible self-harm. Please see the specific warnings at the end if this is potentially concerning to you.

The hand in his was cold.

That wasn’t, unfortunately, anything new. His lover’s hands had been cold ever since he was brought, wounded, unconscious, and frighteningly pale, into the medical wing of the Jedi Temple. The healers insisted that it was simply a natural result of Force healing, and not a sign of some worse injury that had been overlooked. The body, one particularly stiff healer Padawan had informed him, had limited energies. Force healing required all of that energy that the body could spare, so of course some minor temperature regulation of the extremities might be sacrificed.

That didn’t stop Rex from chafing his lover’s hand between his own now, trying to coax a little bit of warmth back into it. Perhaps it was pointless, but Rex had to be doing _something_. Something other than waiting helplessly to see if the man in front of him, the man who held half his heart, was ever going to wake up.

It was just so kriffing _unfair_! The war was over now. The three of them had survived up until the very last day of the fighting. Sure, they had all had more than their fair share of scrapes and close calls, and there had been that one hellish week in which Rex and Cody had believed Obi-Wan really had died at the hands of that bounty hunter, but they had all gotten through intact. They were supposed to have a shot at a real life now.  A life in which they didn’t have to wonder if every moment spent together would be their last.

Instead, Rex has been sitting at this bedside for the last three days, waiting for any sign of a change. The healers hadn’t been able to tell him when, or if, that head injury was going to heal, and he refused to let his lover wake up alone (or die alone, a morbid little voice in his head added. Rex tried resolutely to ignore the dread building in his chest at that thought.)

It was all that _shabuir_ of a Sith’s fault, Rex thought again, the bitterness of it familiar on his tongue. Palpatine had used them all. Had trapped them all in the webs of his plotting, spending the lives of clones and Jedi alike in his grab for power. The whole damned war, the supposed honorable purpose for which Rex and Cody and all their brothers had been made, had been nothing more than a twisted game, with all the pieces on both sides manipulated according to the Sith’s will. All of the heartache, the brothers lost, the exhaustion in Obi-Wan’s eyes that had grown deeper and deeper until Rex and Cody were afraid that he would shatter altogether...that bastard had _planned_ it. And then, with that final kriffing order, he had...he had tried to take…had nearly _taken..._

Rex clenched his jaw, and tightened his hold on his lover’s hand. Force, if he had just gotten here _sooner_!

* * *

Rex pulled the concealing hood of the robe a little higher over his face, as he slipped past the last checkpoint before the Jedi Temple. The brush of rough fabric sent a twinge through the still-tender scar on his forehead, but he ignored it. He couldn’t afford even a moment’s delay. Not with the proof he carried on the data card tucked into a pouch under his shirt. Not when this knowledge had been Fives’ death sentence, and so many other lives were now at stake.

Senator Amidala had sworn that General Skywalker was in the Temple now, in her response to his frantic message. He could only pray that she was right. She wasn’t exactly his first choice of contact for this (too deeply entrenched in politics, too close to...to _him_.) But she was also the only one he’d been able to reach on Coruscant without resorting to channels where the communication might be intercepted.

He had tried General Kenobi first, of course ( _Obi-Wan_ , a softly cultured voice in his memory corrected. _How many times do I need to tell you to call me by my name when we’re not on the battlefield? You don’t need to be so careful, darling, not in private_ ) but it seemed that both he and Cody had been sent off on some urgent mission for the Council. The message in their blind drop account hadn’t told him any more than that, but he knew his lovers well enough to tell that something big was happening. Maybe even something that could end the war.  He had cursed their timing; if he was right, nothing could be more dangerous for the Jedi right now than to become politically unnecessary. He had left messages of course, for both Obi-Wan and Cody, but he knew his lovers in this, too; it was unlikely that either of them would check their comms until after their current mission was over.

And when he’d tried General Skywalker’s private comm line instead...well, it had been Senator Amidala who picked up. Rex knew he shouldn’t have been surprised. How many times, when he’d still been Captain of the 501st, had he tried to message his General when they were on leave, only to find the Senator’s voice on the other end of the comm? It had been a trust from both of them, to let him see that side of their lives, instead of the polite fiction of cordial acquaintanceship they tried to maintain in public. Rex had done his best to be worthy of that trust; he had never discussed their relationship, even with Cody or Obi-Wan. And, truth be told, he liked the Senator personally. She was a fierce fighter in her own right, intensely loyal to the Republic and to the Jedi. Also, she actually considered clones to be _people_ , unlike most of her colleagues.

But that didn’t stop him from calling General Skywalker all kinds of names under his breath as he entered his old credentials into the keypad next to one of the lesser Temple doors, hoping against hope that his old access permissions hadn’t been purged from the system after his reassignment. Damn the man, for leaving his comm behind on today of all days! Oh, Padme had been able to smuggle him onto Coruscant without it appearing in the official records, and had even been willing to do it without asking too many awkward questions when he impressed the urgency of situation on her, but Rex _couldn’t_ entrust the proof he carried to any member of the Senate, however well-meaning. There was too great a risk of information getting to the wrong ears. Cody might call him paranoid, but the Senate had been too thoroughly infiltrated, and at such a high level...Rex felt sick at the thought.

No, he needed a Jedi. A Jedi Councilor, by preference. And right now, General Skywalker was the only one on Coruscant that he could be sure would listen.

Rex breathed a sigh of relief when door gave a soft chime, and slipped open. So his permissions _hadn’t_ been wiped. That should certainly make it easier to find General Skywalker. The small passageway on the other side of the door was empty, so Rex was able to walk unhindered to the nearest terminal, and use his old code to log into the unrestricted sections of the Temple computers. He made a mental note to have Cody send the Jedi Council a scathing report about Temple security, if they all survived this. It should not have been this easy for someone with no official business there to even reach the Temple, let alone get inside and access their systems, even if that someone was a clone. Perhaps _especially_ if that someone was a clone, Rex thought, patting a hand over that hidden data card self-consciously.

A quick query to the Temple computer system confirmed that Jedi Councilor Knight Skywalker was indeed in the Temple, and reported his location as being within the Council chambers themselves. Rex paused for just a moment to erase the query from the terminal’s history (after all, he didn’t _think_ that the Temple computers had been infiltrated, but given the situation, he didn’t think he could be too careful). Then he adjusted the robe once more, and set off purposefully down the corridor and into the heart of the Temple.

The robe was, in fact, one of Obi-Wan’s. Rex and Cody had taken to collecting them over the years, picking them up from wherever they had been abandoned (in the Officer’s mess aboard the _Reliant_ , half-buried under a pile of rubble in the Gubernatorial Palace on some newly liberated world, and once, right in the middle of a battlefield during a firefight). They would launder them and keep them on hand for the next time that their General (their lover) managed to lose his robe in the middle of a deployment. And if Rex sometimes kept one of those discarded robes a little longer than was necessary, to soften his bunk and make the lonely nights when the 501st and 212th were stationed separately pass more quickly...well, one of the benefits of rank was private sleeping quarters. The only officer Rex ever had to share with was Cody himself. And Cody was hardly going to judge Rex for keeping a bit of their lover with him.

It was proving especially helpful now, though. With hood pulled low over his face, none of the passing Jedi gave him a second glance. Rex passed unchallenged through the lower levels of the Temple, and into the lift up to the Council tower. He did not encounter any other Brothers along the way, for which he was grateful. At least this way, if the worse came to pass, the Jedi in the Temple might have a chance to defend themselves. He couldn’t bear to think of how it would be for the Jedi in the field, who were trusting his brothers at their backs. Jedi like Obi-Wan, who even now was probably fighting at Cody’s side...

Rex grimaced, as the lift made its slow way up the tower. He had barely slept on the way to Coruscant, instead spending every moment during his several day journey trying to get the news out to any of the Commanders he could reach without the message being intercepted. Wolffe, paranoid bastard that he was, had answered Rex’s covert communiqué right away, though there was no word as to whether or not he had been able to pass it on to Bacara before the Nova Corps were sent out with General Koon. Alpha-17 had sent a response from Kamino shortly after that. Grey’s scrambled comm drop had confirmed that he’d seen the message on Kaller, though there was no response by the time Rex hit atmosphere and cut the comm contact. Rex sent messages to Bly and Gree as well, but there was no word as to whether they had actually seen them yet. As for the rest of the Commanders...well, Rex could only hope that the ones he contacted managed pass the information along.

The lift gave a soft chime, and opened onto the foyer outside the Council chambers. Rex drew himself up, fully prepared to bully his way past whatever Knight was currently stuck as Council secretary today, only to stop short. Because the foyer, for the first time in Rex’s memory of the place, was completely empty. Admittedly, Rex had only been up here a few times; most meetings that included the clones were held in the war room at the bottom of the tower, not up here. But still, there should be _someone_ on duty.

Hesitantly, Rex crossed the foyer and pushed on the heavy stone door of the main Council chamber. It swung open in near silence.

He thought at first that the chamber was empty. Then he spotted General Skywalker, hunched in one of the human-sized chairs nearest the door. For a moment, his face seemed hidden in shadow, and Rex felt a shudder of unease creep up his spine. There was something about the General’s posture that was...off. Almost fragile, like one good blow could shatter him into pieces.

Rex gritted his teeth, and clenched his fists. There was no _time_ for nebulous worries. Of course the General was tired. This war had taken its toll on all of them. No doubt they’d all be more exhausted before today was over, but none of them could afford further delay for rest. With a slight shake of his head, Rex reached up and drew back the hood of his borrowed robe and strode across the room. He stopped in front of General Skywalker, and gave a quick salute.

The General looked up at Rex, and the wild, cornered look in his eyes was briefly replaced by shock. “Rex? What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be with Ahsoka on Mandalore. Why are you-”

“I’m sorry, General,” Rex interrupted. “I had a more urgent mission, and I need you to take my report now, while there’s still time.”

General Skywalker gave him a hard look, and Rex fought the urge to flinch under the intensity of that gaze. “Report then, Captain.”

Rex pulled the hidden pouch from beneath his shirt and drew out the all-important data card. “I have discovered proof of treason, sir, at the very highest levels. There is someone within the government who has been manipulating this war from the very beginning, and that person means to see the Jedi dead.”

“I know,” the General said quietly.

“I swear, sir, I have the proof right...wait, what?” Rex stared at him. “What do you mean you know?”

“Chancellor Palpatine is a Sith Lord,” the Jedi said dully. “He revealed his presence to me earlier today. The rest of the Council is even now en route to his offices, to place him under arrest.”

Rex’s heart dropped into his stomach, and he felt his face blanche. “Now, sir?”

General Skywalker nodded. “Master Windu is leading a team to ensure that Palpatine is taken unharmed.”

“Sir, they are walking into a trap!” Rex exclaimed. The General opened his mouth to reply, but Rex continued on urgently. “This goes deeper than just the Chancellor himself, General. It’s the whole kriffing war! He planned all of this from the very beginning. He _did_ something to us, sir, to every clone in the GAR. The Kaminoans put these chips in our heads, on _his_ orders, that let him control our minds with nothing more than an order with the right code. That’s what killed Tup. That’s what Fives was trying to warn us about. And if he activates those things, then every single clone trooper in the Galaxy is going to turn against their Jedi, and nothing any of us can do will stop it!”

Rex watched the General go pale. The panic twisted and burned in his chest, as he saw the full enormity of the situation settle in .

“All of you?” the Jedi whispered, horror and fear warring in his eyes.

“A few of us have managed to get them out,” Rex said, tapping the new scar on his forehead. “And Alpha-17 tells me that some of the first gen never got them at all. But those of us without chips are few and far between, and as far as I know, none of them are on Coruscant.”

Abruptly, General Skywalker shot to his feet. Grabbing Rex by the arm, he set off back towards the tower lift. “Then we have to go after the rest of the Council. We have to warn them, and make sure that they stop Palpatine before he has a chance to send that order out.”

When they reached the lift, the General began to punch a series of commands into the control panel. “Hold on,” he muttered, and then the lift was plummeting at near-breakneck speed toward the level of the fighter hangar. Rex clutched the handrail tightly, grateful both for his enhanced physiology that allowed him to handle these kinds of accelerations without injury, and for the fact that he hadn’t eaten in the last two days, and therefore had nothing in his stomach to throw back up.

* * *

General Skywalker’s knuckles clenched white on the steering column as they raced towards the Republic Executive Building. All attempts to raise Master Windu on comms, or any others of the Council members who had gone after Palpatine, had failed. They had both sat unspeaking after that, watching the garish lights of Coruscant’s political district race below. The unspoken fear that they were already too late hung between them, a noxious haze that threatened to sap away the remains of Rex’s energy with panic.

“You said that a few of the others managed to get the chips removed,” the General said, breaking the silence at last. “Was...was Cody among them? Or any of the others in 212th”

Rex could hear the real question under that. _Is Obi-Wan safe? Is my brother going to be the one with a blaster aimed at his head if we fail?_

“No, sir. I tried to reach him while I was in transit, but I couldn’t raise him on private comms, and it seemed like too great a risk to reach him on military channels. And he’s...well, Cody is a lot like Ob-... like General Kenobi. He’s not going to check anything that might be personal while he’s in the field.”

“Personal?” General Skywalker asked, looking sideways at Rex. Then, in an uncharacteristic show of perception, his eyes widened. “Oh. I...I had no idea. I didn’t realize it was like-”

“I’d prefer not to discuss it,” Rex said stiffly, silently cursing himself for letting so much of his guard down. The three of them, they weren’t like General Skywalker and Senator Amidala. They understood the meaning of discretion, and its necessity in wartime. They’d managed to keep their relationship quiet, even from their closest friends and the brothers they served beside. But if even the infamously unaware Anakin Skywalker was noticing that Rex’s worry for Cody and Obi-Wan was a bit more than friendly...Rex could only hope that everyone would be too distracted by what was about to take place to worry about something as small as fraternization among the ranks, or else the rest of this war was going to be a lot harder for all three of them.

And that was, of course, assuming that any of them survived the day.

“They’re going to be alright, you know,” General Skywalker said in a low voice, as if hearing Rex’s thoughts.

“I hope you’re right, sir,” Rex said tightly, trying to hide the way his hands were shaking.

* * *

Their shuttle set down on the landing pad of the Executive building, and they both set off at a run. Rex pushed himself to limits of his enhanced agility and stamina as he tried to keep up with General Skywalker’s Force-borne speed without running into any obstacles. The obstacles, however, were disturbingly few compared to what the space normally boasted. The corridors, normally bustling with politicians, guards, aides, and various droids, were eerily silent as they passed, showing no signs of habitation. There were no bodies, and no signs of violence, but there was also no innocuous reason for the tower to be empty at this time of day.

When they reached they antechamber of the Chancellor’s office, they found it similarly abandoned. The holo-comm terminal on the secretary’s desk was, however, active, and displaying a series of pre-recorded holographic messages as it sent them out, one by one.

Rex swore as he caught the tail-end of one of the messages.

“...the time has come. Execute Order 66.”

General Skywalker halted in his dash towards the Chancellor’s inner sanctum, turning a horrified look on Rex. “Is that...”

“Go!” Rex snarled, as he dashed for the comm terminal. “I’ll halt the transmissions. You get the Sith!”

If the General objected to receiving what amounted to orders from a lowly clone Captain, he showed no sign of it. Instead, he gave a curt node, and ran on down the hallway which led to the heart of the office.

Rex’s fingers flew over the keys, bypassing the comm system’s internal security. With the tiny part of his mind not utterly engaged with his task, he gave a silent thanks to Ahsoka, who had showed him how to slice his way into most any standard Republic system as a way of passing the time during long, uneventful watches on the _Reliant_. He doubted that his Commander (she would _always_ be his Commander, no matter what the Jedi Council said) had ever intended him to use those skills on the Chancellor’s own private comm, but he could think of no more fitting way to pay back her tutelage than to use those slicing skills to save the Jedi.

With a flare of static, the pre-recorded transmissions shut down, and Rex breathed a small sigh of relief. There would be no more orders of death sent from this terminal, and no more brothers who found their own minds turned against them. When he checked the unit’s backlog of sent messages, however, he swore again. There were four holo calls sent out from this terminal in the last five minutes. He pulled up the recordings, clenching his fists to keep his hands from trembling.

The first had gone out to Commander Bacara of Nova Corps. Rex watched impassively as the playback showed the Commander stiffen upon receiving the Order, then give an affirmation in a toneless, mechanical voice. It would seem that Rex’s warning hadn’t been passed along after all, or else Bacara hadn’t been able to get the karking chip removed in time.

Rex keyed in Wolffe’s encoded channel. He was greeted almost instantly with the sight of Wolffe’s flight helmet. “Commander, this is Captain Rex. Nova Corps has been compromised. You need to get General Koon out of there and to a safe location. Do you copy?”

Wolffe mumbled something entirely unfit for civilized company, then replied. “Acknowledged, Captain. Will call you back when the General is secured.”

“You do that,” Rex replied. The display flicked off again as Wolffe cut the call.

The second call had gone out to General Secura’s flagship. It had not, however, gone to Bly directly. Rex keyed his military comm number into the unit.

“Commander Bly, this is Captain Rex, with urgent orders from Coruscant. Do you copy?”

No image appeared on the display, but a tiny voice replied. “This is Commander Bly. What’s going on out there, Captain? I can’t get anyone in orbit to answer our hails.”

“No time to explain,” Rex said quickly. “There’s some real pudu going down in the galaxy right now, Commander. You need to send one last message to the _Intrepid_ , reporting that General Secura has been killed, and then you need to cut all contact until you hear from me or General Skywalker. Understood?”

“I need to _what_?!!” Bly squawked.

“As I said, Commander, there’s no time to explain now,” Rex repeated, reining in his temper with only the most tenuous of holds. “Please, Bly, there’s a lot lives riding on this. Including your General’s.”

“I...alright,” Bly agreed reluctantly. Then, more firmly, he said, “Acknowledged, Captain. We await your word. Over and out.”

The third call had gone out to Gree on Kashyyyk. For a split second, Rex’s mind drew a horrified blank, as he tried and failed to think of someone, anyone on Kashyyyk who could get the warning out to General Yoda and General Unduli. Then, in a flash of inspiration, he remembered Chewbacca, that Wookiee friend of Ahsoka’s from that mess with the Trandoshans. Rex’s spoken Shyriiwook was a mess, but he could at least write an urgent message to the Wookiee, and hope that they could hide both Generals long enough for the situation here to be dealt with.

Rex was almost starting to think that they’d averted this disaster entirely, when he pulled up the fourth and final sent message.

It had gone to Cody.

The ground seemed to fall out from under Rex, as his fingers flew over the controls. Maybe, if he rerouted the comm unit’s signal, and stuck to audio only, he could get a call through before the holo message arrived. That was a much larger data packet, after all, and holo comm traffic never went through the direct routings, so it was possible. It was _possible…_

A light flicked on at the edge of the display, indicating that the call had connected, and Rex roared into the unit’s audio pickup.

“Commander Cody, urgent priority message. Cody, do you copy?”

There was a crackle of static, and then the reply came through.

“This is CC-2224. Order 66 is received, and is about to be disseminated to all troopers present. Current ETA to execution is approximately ten minutes. Is there a modification requested?”

Rex wanted to scream. He wanted to hit something, or break the console, or weep. Because that empty, mechanical voice was _not_ his Cody. It was not his lover, the man he had sweated with and bled on and fought beside from the very first day they had both been old enough to hold a blaster.

Instead, Rex just clenched his fist until his nails cut into his palms, and said, “Commander, you have new orders. Repeat, new orders. Do _not_ engage the Jedi. Do you copy, Commander? _Do not engage_.”

“An authorization is required for modifications to contingency orders. I am going to need your code for that.”

Rex felt a bead of sweat slide down his forehead. “Commander, your orders were issued illegally. Chancellor Palpatine is under arrest for treason. You are hereby ordered to stand down, by the authority of General Anakin Skywalker and the Jedi Council.”

“I’m sorry. That is not a valid code for modification of contingency orders. Order 66 will continue as written.”

Rex pounded a fist against the desk. “Kark it! Cody, _cyar’ika_ , you have to fight this! This isn’t you; it’s the thing in your head that the kriffing Sith put there. And you have. To. _FIGHT IT_! You have to come back to me, love. To us.”

“I...Rex?” Cody’s voice hadn’t sounded that uncertain since the head injury that left him with that scar, early in the war, but at least the voice on the comm now sounded like _him._

“Yes, that’s right, Cody. It’s me. You don’t have to this. It’s just the chip in your head. Remember those chips, love? The one they found in Tup. The ones Fives tried to tell us about. That’s what this is. And you can beat it, Cody, I swear. Just throw your blaster away, and sit tight. We can get someone to you soon, to get that thing out of your head, but you just have to hold on and not do anything we can’t fix.”

“I have to...Rex, I have orders. Don’t you understand? The Jedi are...General Kenobi is...they’re traitors. Good soldiers follow orders. You know that.”

“No!” Rex shouted, ignoring the squeal of feedback as he saturated the comm unit’s audio pickup. “No, Cody, they’re not traitors. _Obi-Wan_ is not a traitor. We love him, Cody, and he loves us, and we’re going to have a life together when this whole kriffing war is over. You know him. He would never betray the Republic. It’s a _lie_! The Chancellor is a karking Sith, and he has been since the beginning!”

“Oh.” Cody’s voice was faint and tinny through the comm speakers, but it still sounded so hollow, and lost, and even a little afraid. Rex wished with all his heart that the chip was some enemy that he could fight for his brother. But this was a battle Cody had to face alone, and one that Rex was terribly afraid he was losing.

Then, impossibly, it got worse.

“Cody?” Obi-Wan’s voice said in the background. “Is something wrong? Has a message come from Coruscant?”

“Obi-Wan!” Rex screamed. “You have to get out of there! Cody’s not in control of himself. It’s like Tup; the chip is controlling him and you need to _run_! Right now, before-”

“It’s alright, Rex,” Cody said. “I am a good soldier. I know what I need to do.”

“Cody!” Obi-Wan’s voice was suddenly urgent. With a sickening jolt, Rex recognized that edge to his voice as fear. “What are you doing? Put that blaster down! I order you to stop right-”

“I’m sorry, love,” Cody’s voice murmured. Rex heard Obi-Wan let out a wordless cry.

Then the sound of a blaster firing screeched across the comm line, followed by the distinctive, final sound of a body hitting packed earth.

Rex’s racing heartbeat seemed to echo in the silence that followed. His mind followed the rapid beat with a rhythm of its own.

_No, no, no, no, no, no._

On top of of that, a more desperate refrain.

_No, Obi-Wan! We can’t have lost him. Not like this. Oh, Cody, what have they done to you? To us all? It wasn’t supposed to end like this!_

Then the comm crackled again, and another light blinked, indicating a request for visual. Rex fumbled to adjust the controls, and the blue light of a holo projection wavered into being.

The image flickered once, then, like a gift from the Force itself, Obi-Wan’s tired face appeared in the holo image. Rex stared at the hologram, and his heart thumped with relief and the remains of adrenolin.

In the next instant, however, Rex registered the grief in his eyes, and the smear of blood on one cheek.

“Rex, is that you?” he said, sounding utterly spent.

“Yes, sir,” Rex replied softly. “What is the situation there?”

Obi-Wan glanced downward, then back at the holo projector. “Cody is down.”

Rex flinched, as if struck. Before he could reply, however, the sound of uneven footsteps came from the hallway leading to the inner office. Rex glanced up, hand reaching automatically for a blaster he wasn’t carrying, and saw General Skywalker, supporting General Windu as they both limped into the antechamber. They both looked utterly spent, and a smell like an electrical fire lingered around them, but they were at least both on their feet.

General Skywalker froze as soon as he saw the look on Rex’s face. Leaving General Windu propped up against a well, he rushed over. “What happened, Rex? Were you able to stop the Order from going out? And - wait, is that Obi-Wan?” The general snatched the controls for the comm unit out of Rex’s hand. Rex couldn’t bring himself to object, when all he could think of was Obi-Wan’s words, echoing over and over in his head. _Cody is down. Cody is down._

“Obi-Wan, what’s going on?” Anakin asked urgently. Rex noted, somewhat distantly, that although his body seemed even more weary, his eyes were far more clear than they had been in the Council chamber. “Are you alright?”

Obi-Wan grimaced. “I’m fine, Anakin. Grievous is dead, and the mission is accomplished. Commander Cody, however, is _not_. Captain Rex said something about a chip controlling him? Well, I think he tried to fight it. He started towards me, then turned his blaster on himself. I don’t think it was set to full strength. He is alive, but he hit his head when he fell, and there’s a great deal of blood. We can put him in a field bacta tank, but we don’t really have adequate medical facilities on my ship for this kind of delicate injury. I need to evacuate him immediately.”

“Yeah, go ahead. Pack everyone up, and make for Coruscant if you can.” General Skywalker took a deep breath. “We need you here, Master. Half the Council is injured or dead, and...it was Palpatine, Obi-Wan. Palpatine was the Sith.”

Obi-Wan paled, and gasped out something barely coherent. Rex hardly heard him over the roaring in his ears. Those phrases were the only coherent thoughts left in his mind. _He’s alive_ , and _there’s a great deal of blood._

* * *

The door to the healing room swished open, but Rex didn’t bother to look up. He kept his focus on where he trying to warm Cody’s hands. If that stiff young Healer Padawan wanted to lecture him again about “proper self-care while attending to the wounded”, then she could do so without the courtesy of Rex’s attention. Instead of being talked at by a lanky-looking Bothan, however, Rex found himself wrapped in a brief embrace. A soft kiss was placed atop his head.

“How is he doing?” Obi-Wan asked quietly. He sat down on the edge of Cody’s bed, reaching out to stroke the new constellation of scars littering Cody’s forehead.

Rex grunted. “No change. That little healer keeps insisting that it’s too soon to know anything, and that I should ‘really learn to release those kinds of negative emotions into the Force.’ I swear, if she comes in here one more time, I’ll release my fist into her face.”

“Mmm,” Obi-Wan said, clearly listening to the worry and ignoring the words themselves. “Well, the healers here aren’t used to having anyone other than Jedi as patients, so I suppose that kind of insensitivity is only to be expected.”

Obi-Wan turned his full attention to Cody then, letting his hand linger gently over the fading lines of both the original injury and the subsequent surgery to remove the control chip. A small line appeared between his brows; a gesture Rex had come to associate, over their years together, with his Jedi lover using the Force. “You really must come back to us, darling. Rex and I are waiting for you, and you know how he gets when he worries. He’ll never stop and get some rest without you here to make him do it.”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Rex scoffed. “I know very well that you haven’t slept anymore than I-”

Then the rest of what he had been about to say was forgotten entirely, as Rex felt the hand he was rubbing between his own give a sudden twitch.

“Cody?” Rex asked urgently. “ _Cyar’ika_ , can you hear me?”

Obi-Wan froze, his hand lingering over where he had been feeding healing energy into Cody’s wounds. And then, without fanfare, Cody’s eyes fluttered open.

“‘Course I hear you,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Bet...they can hear you...halfway to Kamino, with the racket you’ve been making.”

Rex laughed, and then half-choked on a sob, before pressing Cody’s hand to his lips. Obi-Wan dove down and immediately began peppering Cody’s cheeks, forehead, eyes, and lips with gentle little kisses, murmuring nonsensical endearments in between.

Then Obi-Wan leaned back slightly, looking at Cody. “Darling, what do you remember? Can you tell me where you are?”

Cody coughed something that sounded like the ghost of a chuckle. “Looks like I’m in the Jedi Healing wing. Not sure what I did to rate that kind of care. And as for what I remember…” His lip twisted. “I remember that kriffing thing screaming in my head. I remember what it wanted me to do.”

Cody turned his head towards Rex, and smiled. “Thank you for stopping me, vod’ika.”

“I didn’t stop _you_ ,” Rex growled. “I stopped that karking chip.” Then he continued, more softly. “And I’m so very sorry I didn’t find the proof of them sooner, love. I was so close to being too late.”

“Nah,” Cody said, still smiling. “You were just in time. And there was no harm done.”

“No harm!” Obi-Wan exclaimed. “You almost _died_ , Cody. You stood there, with a blaster pointed at your head, and I had to watch you pull the trigger. You call _that_ no harm?” He looked down, and whispered. “The last time I was that scared, the person I loved most in all the galaxy died in front of me.” Rex just glared at Cody in silent agreement with their lover’s words.

“It was set to stun,” Cody pointed out. “I’m not stupid, and I don’t have deathwish.”

“We didn’t know that, love,” Rex replied, his voice quiet, but full of the fear they’d been living with over past the week since the war ended.

Cody made a scoffing noise in the back of his throat, but his face softened. Cody reached one slightly shaky hand up to stroke a finger over Obi-Wan’s cheek. “Either way, it was worth it, to make sure that _shabuir_ didn’t take you from us. And besides,” Cody’s eyes crinkled, as his smile widened further. “You can’t get rid of me that easily.”

Obi-Wan laughed at that; a broken, slightly hysterical laugh, but a laugh all the same. Then he leaned down, and planted a soft, lingering kiss on Cody’s lips. When he broke away, Rex followed his example, letting the feel of Cody under him, alive, if not yet whole, sooth away the lingering anxiety of his long vigil.

They were going to live, Rex realized as he broke the kiss and scooted to one side, making room for Obi-Wan climb over Cody and lie down next to him in the bed, covering them both in the warm folds of Obi-Wan’s Jedi robes. Not just survive, but well and truly live. Together, in a galaxy that wasn’t tearing itself apart in bloody civil war. As he took one of Obi-Wan’s hands, and laid his head down on Cody’s thigh, Rex thought he rather liked the idea.

Eventually, Cody’s smile of satisfaction morphed into a grimace of pain.

“Not that I don’t love having you both here,” Cody said. “But my head feels like it was chewed on by a whole pride of nexu. I don’t think I can be very good company for much longer.”

“That’s alright, darling,” Obi-Wan soothed, running a hand lightly over Cody’s forehead again. From the way that Cody’s expression eased ever so slightly, Rex suspected their Jedi of using the Force to ease some of the pain. “Get some rest.”

“We’ll still be here when you wake,” Rex promised, stroking Cody’s palm with his thumb, and delighting in the warmth that was finally returning there.

“Mmmm, you’d better be,” Cody mumbled, as he drifted off to sleep.

Obi-Wan followed soon after, lulled by the warmth of Cody beside him, and the quiet peace of the Healing wing. Rex didn’t mind. He settled himself back in the chair to keep watch over both of his lovers, while their soft breathing provided a reassuring background. He had waited a long time, for chance at life with them after the war. He could wait a little longer.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary:  
>  _Cyar’ika_ \- [Mando’a] Sweetheart
> 
>  _Shabuir_ \- [Mando’a] Asshole
> 
>  _Vod’ika_ \- [Mando’a] Brother (diminutive form, as a term of affection)
> 
> Content warning: This fic contains is a scene in which, in order to stop the control chip from forcing him to hurt Obi-Wan, Cody stuns himself with his own blaster, and as a result, falls and accidentally hits his head. Because neither Rex nor Obi-Wan is aware that Cody has set his blaster to stun, they both believe for a time that he was attempting to kill himself to save Obi-Wan. Cody did not actually intend to harm himself, but because of the ambiguity in that scene, it may be potentially risky for readers sensitive to self-harm-related content.


End file.
